Hey guess what? I did manage to pull this together for you all this week. Unfortunately it's criminally short because of that. Oh well.
This week, some transitions occur with some explanations of stuff while 3 loses the fight to not give everyone a back story.
Enjoy.
Reviews:
blueraven1999: Thank you! Me to, but for some reason if their 'children speculation' then I'm okay with it. I'm weird like that. He chooses to ignore things like that I suppose. *shrugs.* I shall try!
dandy wonderous: Why yes it is! *joins in.* He wants to be surprised, of course. Just let nature take it's course and the like. :P I always thought it would be amusing if Sanji's flirting was passed down to his daughter. Guess a was right. :P Tania's actually becoming one of my favorites too, strangly enough. He is, isn't he? 3 That took a while to come up with too, so glad you liked it! :D
Abra Cadaverous: Mission accomplished. XP Maaaybe (probably). ;) We'll see what happens. Don't worry, the only Luffy pairing I can really get behind is LuffxMargaret. I do, I was just being silly. XD I wouldn't know, because I haven't either. They take it out of your servers pay check though, so don't do it. They need money. Well, I only really pair Sanji with Nami or Zoro...and Zoro can't get pregnant. XP Yes, kneel before the awesome that is me! Kidding, I'm not that egotistical, stand back up, you're making me blush. Not really, they're actually really good friends. Cali just got overly jealous because she's crushing on Sanji and Tania's hanging out with him. She'll get over it. Their like blood relations...except he doesn't have any blood!! SKULL JOKE! Always good for beating the crap out of. ;p I know right! 3 Thank you!
ColourPearl: Yup! The or something is there because I'm to lazy to find out how far back they actually are. _ It is...poor Brooke. T_T He's only human (I think.) He has to die eventually (maybe). Thank you so much! I kinda am...a little, if you think about it.
Sora Tayuya: *waits patiently.* Thank you very much! Well if you loved that stuff, then this chapter'll be fun...please stick with me a little longer though and try to hold onto your sanity!
As per the norm, One Piece belongs to someone who can actually draw.
Jasper glanced around the private car of the Sea Train that he and his brother sat in with their captive. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and stood up.
"I'm gonna goes gets some foods. Y'all wants anythings?"
Nami shot him a death glare, causing the smaller man to flinch. Horace shook his head and kept staring out the window. His brother quickly scampered out of the car.
The young navigator turned her glare on the sole remaining occupant in the car with her. She kept it up for a few minutes before he finally snapped.
"Would you be so kind as to not gaze upon me in such a manner? It is quite impolite."
"Impolite? And what exactly is so polite about kidnapping again?"
Horace removed his hat and rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. "We are very sorry about that, if it helps any at all. We would have preferred to have avoided such uncouth behavior if it were possible."
"You could have, you know, not kidnapped me!"
He sighed and leaned back. "This island that Boss would like for you to navigate her too...for all intents and purposes, there is a very valuable treasure hidden on it."
Nami's eyes lit up at that. "Treasure you say?"
The minion smirked. "Not the shiny, expensive kind, but yes." She looked disappointed at that, but he continued on, "It is in actuality an extraordinarily rare flower that can only exist on the aforementioned island."
"What's so special about this flower?" she asked. "And can you untie me? These ropes are chaffing."
"Alas, if I were to untie you, you would just beat me and my brother senseless and make a grandiose escape. As such, it is in our best interest to keep you as you currently are." He shifted his attention back to the window. "As for your query about the flower, it has been discovered to be extremely useful in many instances."
The orange-haired girl sighed. "Fine, I'll bite; what's so useful about this stupid flower?"
Horace looked at her appalled, "This, my dear, is the farthest thing from a 'stupid-flower' you are ever bound to find." He leaned his elbows on his knees and started the pirate straight in the eye. "Since this island we want you to find is near impossible to get to and it coincidentally happens to be the only place said flower can exist, only two people have ever had the opportunity to study it. One of them you might be familiar with," he quirked his eyebrow, "a certain Dr. Chopper?"
Nami's glare intensified. "So it has some medical properties. So do hundreds of other plants."
"But," her captor exclaimed, leaning back in his seat, "how many of those alleged hundreds that you mentioned had the potential to cure anything?"
"So, that boss of yours has someone she cares about who's sick and the only cure is in that flower?" Nami shrugged as much as her binds would let her. "Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for her or something?"
He chuckled. "If you put it like that, you make it sound like she actually has a heart." He sighed. "Unfortunately this flower can do more than just heal people. The only other person to have studied that side of the flower we are hunting is a man by the name of Vegapunk III."
"Third? How many Vegapunks are there?"
"I believe that there is currently a fourth working for the World Government as we speak, but we're digressing." He turned to face his captive. "Vegapunk III studied the flower in question and found that besides its numerous medical properties, it could be used for…other things." He leaned back again and shook his head. "Not one soul knows every single thing he found out about the plant, but what he found fit to show the world was both disturbing and pleasing. Among the different concoctions he made out of the flower was one that could actually reverse the effects of devil fruits."
"Like, get rid of them completely? Even bring back a user's ability to swim?"
"Yes in theory at any rate. As it turned out, even though everyone praised this discover of his as one of the crowning achievements in history, no one ever wanted to actually try it out. As a result of this, no one knows what the side-effects of it are."
"So, your boss wants to get rid of a devil fruit?"
"That is what she wants us to assume."
Nami pouted. "What's with the vague answers? Not high enough on the food chain to get the real answers, I suppose."
"This so-called organization of ours here consists of only four members…five members, I suppose, now that you are here."
"I'm being held here against my will! I don't count!"
Horace grimaced and looked back out the window. "What makes you think any of our predicaments are any different?"
The navigator stared blankly at him, a question in her eyes. She never got the chance to voice it, however, as at that moment Jasper returned with his goodies from the snack car.
"I gots some mikans and somes cakes for yous guys." He said, handing the cake to his brother, who took it with a word of thanks before staring out the window again, and offering the mikan to Nami, who sighed exasperated.
"How am I supposed to eat that tied up?"
He blinked at her while his brother chuckled.
"It seems as though our princess here would like you to hand feed her, Jasper."
"Or you could untie me. In fact, I'd prefer it if you'd untie me."
"But yous woulds just trys to runs agains." Jasper said, red faced as he unpeeled the fruit and put it in her mouth. She reluctantly chewed it and renewed her death glares at the pair of them. Jasper shifted uncomfortably while Horace just opted to ignore her.
It's going to be a long ride to wherever we're going, Nami thought.
"Clear?" Zoro asked as Usopp peered from around the corner of the alleyway they were hiding in.
"Not yet…" he muttered in response.
"Someone's coming from over here." Luffy said at the other end.
"Is it the guys from before?" Zoro asked.
"No. They've brought some friends this time too. I didn't know they made bazookas that big…"
Zoro cursed under his breath. They had been going at this for some time. Apparently there was a missing girl who was described as, "She has like, brown hair, and two legs, and stuff." A worried citizen thought that the unconscious Luna was this girl and assumed that the muscular Zoro had beaten her into her unconscious state and was in the process of kidnapping her. Naturally local marines had been called. Fighting them off normally wouldn't have been a problem, if it weren't for the fact that if Luffy was caught stretching, their headaches would just multiply, Zoro couldn't use any of his swords with Luna on his back, and Usopp had somehow forgotten how to use his slingshot. One cloud-dial sacrifice later and the pirates decided that their best course of action would be to run for it.
Which was now why they were hidden in the fiftieth alley today, Usopp looking for a chance to get to the next one undetected while Luffy served as a lookout for the rear.
"Go!" Usopp whispered as he bolted out from their hiding place. Zoro kicked Luffy to get his attention before both of them followed.
Usopp led them into a dark dead end alleyway. He skidded to a halt just before the brick wall only to be plowed into it by Zoro and Luffy who didn't stop in time. After getting out of the pile they created, Luffy rushed to the entrance of the alley to continue his duty as lookout.
"Now what?" Usopp asked. "We can't fight them. And if they find us they could recognize us!"
"No one has up to this point. Besides you've got more tricks in your bag other than your slingshot right?"
"Y-yeah, but…"
"They didn't follow us!" Luffy said excitedly. Zoro and Usopp sighed.
"Well now what?" Zoro asked.
"Now we find Nami. Or Sanji." He started to leave their hiding place before two hands grabbed him and pulled him back in.
"And how are we supposed to do that when we have no idea where they've take Nami or what they've done with Sanji and our only guide is currently out cold?!" Usopp demanded.
Luffy shrugged. "Dunno. But we'll find a way somehow."
"You and your optimism. We can't just go wandering out into a world we know nothing about! Especially without a guide!"
"So we wake Luna up." He walked over to the unconscious girl and started poking her. "Oi, Luna! C'mon we gotta go!"
"Idiot!" Zoro turned sharply to get Luna out of Luffy's finger's reach. "If she's resting you shouldn't just wake her up!"
"But she can't help us when she's sleeping, so we've gotta wake her up!" Luffy stretched his arm around Zoro's other side to continue the poking. The swordsman ducked and lunged behind the sniper only to be followed by his captain's finger as if it were some kind of heat seeking missile. Another sidestep accidentally had him launching both him and the long-nosed liar at the wall.
"This is not how you're supposed to treat an unconscious person." Luna said from the top of their pile.
"Luna! You're awake!" Luffy shouted, grinning.
"No thanks to you." She stood up and wobbled over to the wall to lean against it. "Seriously, do you care for all your friends like that when they're out cold?"
"Yes." Usopp and Zoro replied in unison as the stood up too.
"You okay? What happened?" Usopp asked.
"Yeah…it's just that jumping around through time and stuff can take a lot out of a person…'specially if she's bringing people along for the ride."
"So now what?" Usopp asked again. Luna sighed and shook her head.
"Whatever you want. If you want to go after Nami, I'll take you after Nami. If you want to find Sanji, then I'll help you find Sanji. But first," she stepped forward and wobbled a little before Usopp helped her, "we should get out of here. I know there's an inn here somewhere. We could spend the night there and look for your friends in the morning."
No one had any better suggestions, so Luna, leaning on the sniper's shoulder, led the way to a shady looking inn called The Wooden Pony. After paying for their room and a little extra to not ask questions, the three pirates and their time traveling friends found themselves sitting in a cramp, dusty room with only two small beds.
"Well, I can't sleep with you unclean pirates, so I definitely get my own bed…"
"The three of us can't all fit on that one bed!" Usopp exclaimed. Zoro shrugged and flopped down on one of the beds while Luffy lay down next to him, hat over his eyes.
"I was kidding…kinda. If you can't squeeze in there, I don't mind terribly sharing a bed with you for one night."
He led her over to the other bed where she promptly flopped down face first onto the sheets. "It's fine. I'll squeeze in with them somehow."
"You sure?" She shrugged and sat up. "I really don't mind."
The curly haired man shook his head. "No, it's okay. Ladies deserve their own bed anyway."
"You're doing it wrong!" Luffy sat up, rearranged part of his hair to cover his left eye, and put two fingers up to his mouth as if he was smoking a cigarette. "You shitheads don't know how to properly treat a lady," he took a drag from his imaginary cig, "now get out of my kitchen, shitty rubber-head."
Zoro chuckled. "That was just like him."
"Couldn't even tell the difference." Usopp laughed. An eerie silence descended upon the room.
"So," Luna finally said, "who do you want to try to find? Nami or Sanji?"
"If we go after Sanji, then he'd be a big help in finding Nami." The sniper stated.
"But the love-cook wouldn't forgive us if for letting Nami get away." The swordsman said. "Plus he can take care of himself."
"They want Nami alive though; they're not going to hurt here. Sanji on the other hand…"
"Is a big boy. He'll be able to take whatever this crazy era throws at him."
"He's all by himself though." Usopp let that last sentence hang there.
"Ultimately, these decisions are up to the captain." Luna said, sitting up to look at Luffy. "Who do you choose? Your navigator or your cook?"
"We'll go after Nami." He said without hesitation. "Sanji's going to be looking for her too, so we'll just meet him there."
"Luffy, think about it," Usopp pleaded, "how exactly is he going to get there when we don't even know where they are?"
"He'll find a way, don't worry." The raven-haired captain grinned at his sharpshooter. "It'll be fine."
"Where do we go from here?" Zoro asked.
Luna yawned. "I don't really remember. I will in the morning though, so let's just sleep for now."
"Remember?" the long-nose man questioned. "What can you remember they haven't even gotten there yet?"
"You didn't notice?" She looked at him questioningly. All three pirates shook their heads. "Any singular devil fruit can only exist one at a time. The time time fruit is unique in this aspect, I suppose. Since it can exist at any time, there's only ever been one person to have eaten it: me."
"I don't get it." Luffy said.
"So…" Zoro sat up, "that little girl from the fight…"
"Yeah," Luna shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "She's me."
